WVU Baseball was inspiring on the field, but this moment caught my eye as a coach. After a tough loss, #1 prospect Gavin Kelly stopped the room to thank the behind-the-scenes staff. Players then neatly pushed in their chairs & left. Defeat confirms character. Elite culture.

so good

John Beilein goes into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame this weekend. His run at WVU was storybook, and the Elite 8 run in 2005 is one of the greatest stretches in Mountaineer history. This was one of my favorite recruiting videos I ever made for WVU—it quickly became a video people just wanted to watch to relive that incredible team. There was no YouTube at the time, so I'd burn DVDs and hand them out. As the teams exploded onto the national scene during the Big East and NCAA tournaments, newspapers were still the pulse of the sports world. I wanted to capture that spotlight in the edit. I had Tony Caridi bring me back physical New York newspapers from the Big East run, and tracked down others along the way to weave into the piece. At the Wake Forest game in Cleveland, LeBron James sat nearby. He was in his early years with the Cavs and knew Mike Gansey from their high school basketball days in the Cleveland area. Mike’s performance that night was legendary. Fittingly, both LeBron and Gansey are now with the 76ers. On a personal note, Coach Beilein has remained a true friend and mentor in my own coaching journey. He has given me invaluable advice that only a coach who has seen it all can offer—shaping my own philosophy on how to build a genuinely connected team. Watching the recent run by @WVUBaseball brought all of this right back. It was that same kind of deeply connected team that brought people together in an emotional way and made Mountaineer fans incredibly proud. Fox Sports put it best: “The 2004-05 Mountaineers were easy to fall in love with and difficult to let go of.” @JohnBeilein @TonyCaridi @KPittsnogle

I’m a bit biased, but I’m very proud of my son.

Throwback to the piece that kicked it all off: the 2002 WVU football hype video to Elvis. That was the year of the massive drought-ending upset at #12 Virginia Tech, ending in Charlotte against UVa—the exact matchup waiting for us this Saturday.

People have asked me recently about the origin of these early-2000s WVU football recruiting videos. This is the 2005 video. Back in 2003, Rich Rodriguez had a vision: show recruits a video on their official visit that captured what Mountaineer Football was all about. Here’s the backstory of how these were made: It started in 2002. I was shooting practice for the team (did this for 6 seasons) and started making the Friday night hype videos for the team. In 2002, the Continental Tire Bowl needed a highlight video to show at events, so I cut a music video for the team. My wife Bethany gave me the idea to use “A Little Less Conversation” by Elvis. After 2003, Rich and Dusty Rutledge wanted something that told a deeper story of the program. They gave me total freedom, and in the years I made them, they never changed a shot. The music was the most important piece. That drove the emotion. Without streaming services, I’d go to Barnes & Noble and stand at the “preview” CD kiosks where you could listen to 30-second snippets. Bethany would also listen intently to songs on commercials or TV shows and we’d hunt them down. At the same time, I was producing “MSN Game,” a 1-hour recap of every game that aired on Fox Sports Pittsburgh. Games were still being played that weren't on live TV. I’d log every shot of a game and edit the show on Sundays using Tony Caridi’s radio call. I used MSN Game as a template to know when the big plays happened, but then I’d go through all of the other tapes to find the off-the-radar shots that felt different—angles and moments nobody had ever seen in traditional highlights. Those were the money shots. MSN had shooters at every game—guys like Greg Shock and Joe Webb captured so many shots that brought these videos alive. I wanted every shot to convey emotion to keep the videos constantly moving. I’d also barter with network TV producers to get their “melts” because they were gold: replays of big plays in real speed with zero scorebugs or graphics. Scott Bartlett made sure every game broadcast was recorded, and Tony Caridi and the TV announcers became the voice of the videos along with Rich’s pregame speeches. The physical workflow was a grind: everything had to be digitized in real time through tape machines. For a single game, you could easily have 20+ tapes to run through. I’d edit all season, and could have up to 50 iterations of the video as I continued to make changes. I’d burn the final version to VHS, and eventually DVD, and hand them off to Dusty for recruiting visits, and they would be shown at fundraising events as well. Three more football videos from the vault coming soon.

I'm glad people enjoyed the 2006 WVU football recruiting video. By request, here's 2004. It was the first time we shot aerials of the stadium. Old-school method, shot from a helicopter.

Pat White was a centerpiece of the WVU Football recruiting videos I made (2006 here). I had a firsthand view in practice - Rich wanted to see what the QB saw, so Rich had me run behind Pat with a camera. The speed was real.

Creating the TV open for the Pony League World Series is always a highlight. Heartbroken tonight’s title game was canceled due to field conditions, but here’s how we were set to open the broadcast.

The power of a baseball at the Pony League World Series.

Kicked off Year 6 coaching Trinity Soccer with our annual alumni game! Great seeing 20+ former players back on the pitch with around 100+ fans in the stands. Nothing better than seeing this community continue to grow.

With Argentina in the WC final, I'm back 18 years at the Beijing Olympics. Watching the Redeem Team and Diego Maradona sat behind me. Michael Phelps was there with his 8 golds, but a sideshow to Maradona and Kobe. Chinese fans were genuinely emotional just to catch a glimpse.

Hawley Field, 2009. Rare aerials from our archives. With the CWS run by @WVUBaseball it was talked about a ton. View from above, shot from a helicopter.